Never played the original pax imperia to know. They never ported it over from the Mac unlike the second one.
I guess its kinda like Master of Orion 2 and 3 meets sins of a solar empire but in 2D and with a big galactic map that you can zoom in and out of like supreme commander. In a nut shell.
Your empires economy and resources are gathered automatically you have a "private sector" of your empire that you have no control over. These are freighters, mining ships and construction ships that represent your civilian economy they will go off trade with friendly worlds and your own colonies. Transport population to newly colonised worlds, transport tourists to scenic sectors of the galaxy within your territory, mine resoures or establish mining bases, supply your starbases with fuel and supplies. They will also transport resources to your colonies. You get common resources that build all your mundane components, your strategic resources that enable you to build high tech components and luxury resources that have positive benefits on your colonies development.
Although If you design new freighters and mining vessels your civilian sector will build them instead. You can design your own ships, its quite easy to mod your own shipsets into the game. I've got a TNG Star Trek one for example. You can design ships as big as you like all that limits what you can build is what your shipyards are capable of building. When your ships are built they will scale to what size they are (i.e. a 100 ton escort will be tiny compared to a 5000 ton capital ship or a huge space station)
As well as other AI empires in the game you also have to deal with pirate bandits/mercenaries how you deal with them has pro's and con's you can buy them out and hire them to harass your neighbours. Or sometimes if you find their base of operations and wipe them out with overwhelming force it may cause other pirate groups to join your empire rather than share the same fate. They also sell you information on neighbours or give you hints were to find abandoned ships or parts of the galaxy that you will find interesting stuff (spoilers to go into that)
There is a story as such though its more just a background story that you follow through exploring the galaxy. Although theres no need to go through it completely as through exploration you can accidentally stumble across abandoned bases, warships and super weapons. If your unlucky the AI empire may stumble across them as well. So basically exploration is the key to establishing your empire, finding key resources.
You can have AI races start out on the same level as you distributed around the galaxy or have the game automatically generate upto 30 empires of various sizes and tech levels (representing a race that has been in space longer etc) Colonies can break away and form their own empires, independent worlds can establish themselves as minor powers in their own right. You can have up to 60 AI empires in the game at the present time.
The automation features are not there to effectively have you watch the game play itself. There an aid to help you focus on the big picture. For example, if you build new frigates or destroyers you can right click on them and set them to automatic. They will then patrol around your territory (both colonies, and bordering star systems) and respond to distress calls from your civilian ships that come under attack. So you don't have to spend time clicking around the place sending individual tiny ships around your territory.
When you manage large fleets, you can order a fleet to have all its ships repair, refuel and notify you when they are gathered into a designated position with fully charged shields and hyper drives at the ready.
The AI will respond to your behaviour near its border. For example, if you send a large powerful capital ship to patrol at a colony near the border of another empire if you have sensors capable of monitoring the AI you will notice they will move military forces nearby as a kind of counter-balance to your manuever. You can provoke cold war like stand off's were you have build up of military forces and tensions begin to rise in your diplomatic relations. If you move your forces away from the border of the AI they will begin to stand down their forces. ]
Any questions before I monotone this thread to death?
01 Jul 2010, 4:33 pm
